Breathtakingly bad.

Rating: 1/10 (13 July 2013)

I only have myself to blame. I saw the trailer and was seduced by the whole "Giant Robots fight Giant Aliens" concept, and Del Toro's record. But to say I was disappointed would be an understatement.
I came very close to walking out. And the only other time I've done that is watching Adam Sandler's "Don't Mess With The Zohan". That's how bad it is.
Visually, it's on a huge scale and is nothing you've seen before. It deserves some plaudits for that. Rinko Kikuchi put in a decent performance (at least when compared to her fellow cast members)
But the poor acting, cringe-worthy dialogue, lazy characterisation, sad attempts at "comic relief", incoherent storyline and gaping plot holes do not make up for the cool effects. And to be honest, after the first 20 minutes or so, you kind of know what you're going to get for the rest of the movie.
I know it's a big blockbusting summer popcorn movie, and I usually LOVE that stuff. But this was lazy. When 95% of your time is on the effects and 5% is on the rest, you're going to get a crappy film, and that's exactly what you get here.